Broken Heart Club by Cathy Cassidy

Author:Cathy Cassidy
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141371269
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2016-04-21T04:00:00+00:00

25

Ryan

Back in the old days, Andie used to bribe me to come to sleepovers with promises of apple pie and pizza and permission to retreat to a quiet corner and read Harry Potter if I got fed up with clowning around and playing the idiot. I never did get fed up, though; not really. When the Heart Club were together, boredom was never an option.

I had the best of all worlds … the freedom to play footy, to skateboard and play Xbox games about zombies and car chases, and then to step into a whole different world with Andie, Eden, Tasha and Hasmita.

I liked that world a lot, obviously. The Heart Club girls were different from my boy mates; gentler, wilder, kinder. It was like having four crazy sisters who knew you better than anyone else alive – or perhaps three crazy sisters and Eden. I liked her way too much, even then, and not in a sisterly kind of way.

By Year Six, I’d got to that awkward stage where I couldn’t leave the house without spending ten minutes in front of the mirror with the comb and the hair gel. I’d been getting through cans of Lynx body spray at an alarming rate, and yet girls were not chasing me along the street or fainting at my feet. They sometimes pinched their noses and rolled their eyes if I came too close, and Tasha told me I was probably overdoing it with the Lynx, so I toned it down.

I was eleven years and three months old when I kissed Eden’s ear at the camp-out sleepover. It had taken me that long to screw up the courage to make a move, and I thought she looked amazing that night – the most beautiful girl in the world.

I’d been aiming for her lips, but she saw me coming and I could see the panic in her eyes. She turned her face and I ended up clumsily kissing her ear, but I didn’t care at all because I heard her draw in a breath and felt her cheek burn warm against mine, her fingers curl round mine in the darkness.

‘Ryan …’ she whispered. ‘I thought …’

I never did get to hear what she thought, sadly.

It all went wrong.

Andie saw us and went nuts, and all three of us fell out big time, with Tasha and Hasmita looking on helplessly, trying their best to make peace. Nightmare.

So yeah … parties.

I find my best pair of jeans, iron my vintage Nirvana T-shirt, slip on new Vans trainers. I shove some gel in my hair and drag a comb through it, stare at the mirror and wish I looked more … well, more something, anyway. I brush my teeth for five whole minutes, then gargle with mouthwash and go looking for chewing gum.

Parties are not my favourite way to spend a Friday night, but Buzz and Chris are set on a night of revelry and I may as well go along for the laugh. Besides,

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